Compromises
by Lady Dementia
Summary: Tarantulas is in Overdose's grasp, but can the Maximals leave him there? 7 in the Overdose series
1. Default Chapter

Tarantulas is in Overdose's grasp, but can the Maximals leave him there?  
  
Hasbro owns the Beast Wars, and I own Overdose and the plot. She's mine, ya hear?! MINE!...I think. Or maybe she owns me? Heh. Anyway, sorry this is so late, but there's this thing called "school" that loves to eat up all my time.  
  
Compromises  
by Lady Dementia  
dementedangel@hotmail.com  
  
* * * * *  
  
Part One  
  
Offline in the darkness of the CR Chamber, Depth Charge's body was being purged off the last of the dosage of poison Overdose had given him and the damage done when she had ripped out his commlink was being repaired. His mind was active despite the status of his body, but he felt only distantly connected to it. He didn't feel distressed by anything that was happening in the real world; he couldn't concentrate long enough to keep focused on anything. This soft darkness was calm and peaceful; deep in his mind nothing mattered, past, present, or future. It always felt like this, though, and so the beginning of the dream didn't seem unusual even though it was as unpleasant as his dreams usually were.  
  
He was searching the ruins of Omicron.  
  
Now the emotions that were missing in the soft darkness of his mind were back, burning through him as he desperately dug in the wreckage of gutted buildings and shattered homes. Hope rose again and again in him with each small trace of survivors, only to be dropped like a stone into despair. A hand reaching out from under a collapsed wall proved to be connected to nothing. He found what he thought was the rest of the body, torn as it was, on the remains of the roof. He held one poor spark in his arms as she gasped her last, tortured breath out. A brave couple had managed to make a stand in a dead end alley. The femme had collapsed across the male in death, a last protection.  
  
The trail of death led to the center of the colony city, where the commons clearing's grass was slick with mingled water and mechfluid from the flooded, corpse-choked river winding through it. Depth Charge stumbled to a stunned halt at its edge, wondering if he had the courage to search for survivors here.  
  
Something moved near the middle of the field, a monster, and he found that he didn't need to have courage. Vengeance cleared everything from his mind and left him coldly purposeful. NOTHING would stand in his way. Weapon in hand, he moved forward quickly and stealthily, no longer looking for any survivors.  
  
A whisper of a female voice teased his audios like something heard from a great distance, making him hesitate in his mission. "When did you stop defending the innocent? When did they just become obstacles in your path of revenge?" Wide, colorful eyes blinked open near the bottom of a pile of contorted bodies, staring at him with no accusation, only childlike, curious sadness.  
  
The field slipped away as he paused uncertainly; the monster escaped as he belatedly glanced around for any living creatures besides himself in the blood-soaked clearing. He recognized the owner of the whirling eyes too late as he knelt down beside her, recent memories piercing into the dream.  
  
Overdose's face melted away with the rest of the setting, reforming again in a scowl of concentration as another scene solidified around them. She was holding some sort of neon pink bird-like writing utensil in one hand; the other was buried in the short fins on her head.  
  
"What exactly is her hobby?" Blackarachnia asked from across the circle of Maximals and Predacons.   
  
The robot she was talking to turned his attention away from the sea slug sitting in the sand filling out a questionnaire. Rampage laughed. "Torture."   
  
The femme looked up from the clipboard as the other transformers blurred out of focus, looking straight into Depth Charge's staring optics, tilted eyes flaring with colors in that intriguing mix of innocence and crazed knowledge of the galaxy.  
  
--a short scream as she collapsed against the one robot she called a friend on this world, and her fins pulsed with pain from the explosion HE had just inflicted on her as Rampage supported her--  
  
--and she turned back around, without any sign of injury as she laughed excitedly. "You and Rampage?! I knew he'd find a boyfriend!" Her fins darkened and the rest of the dream faded away around them, leaving them suspended in darkness. "You should never trust me," she whispered menacingly, seductively, as she swayed towards him.  
  
He was frozen, captured in the depths of those changing eyes. He could hear her speaking from the blackness surrounding them, although she was right in front of him and her lips didn't move at all. Then his voice came from the dark, too. Her computer also spoke, but he remained still, unable to turn away from the femme before him.  
  
"He's the guy who put me in jail. I was starting to think I'd NEVER find him..."  
  
"Nobody named 'Eightline' is on this planet. Does he have a different name, now?"  
  
"Like, totally, dude. The bad dude's, like, named, like, Tarantulas, now."  
  
Her body had blended into the dark now, leaving only her eyes, lit with color and suspended like jewels on black velvet. Depth Charge had the feeling that he was being touched by the night as her hand brushed the side of his face and those bewitching optics neared his face. A gentle pressure was on his mouth, and he knew that in her insanity she was kissing him again...and he was allowing her to. "I told you not to trust me," Overdose murmured, lips moving from his mouth to breath in his audios.  
  
And he was being dragged away, away, AWAY from her, helpless to resist the force that was taking him away from her! But then the screams of pain began, echoing through the darkness until he, too, screamed; screamed with the memories of Omicron and the confusion he suffered now, while the emptiness somehow throbbed with the sounds of torment from tortured sparks, him included, and above them all came crazed, feminine laughter.  
  
Laughter that was both innocent and insane.  
  
* * * * *  
  
She was dancing at the exotic bar, but this was the last dance of the night. The beings assembled on the floor below the stage clapped wildly, clutching their last drinks as she posed one final time, and one certain male caught her eye. Always one for any spur of the moment idea, she did a flip off the stage and landed in his lap. People applauded that, too, but she merely waved and grinned an acknowledgment, wriggling to get comfortable.  
  
"Quite the show you put on," Blacklight purred in her audios, arms settling around her waist since she was so conveniently in his lap. "Hey!" he yelped, spoiling the mood of seduction he had been trying to establish as she swiped his drink off the table. He wasn't quick enough in his return attempt to steal it back, and she gulped it greedily, throwing back her head and pouring it down her throat to restore depleted liquids after her strenuous dancing.  
  
She grinned slyly around the rim of the glass as he drew in a quick breath at the sight of her with her head tossed back in abandon, trickles of the drink escaping from the corners of her mouth and trailing down her smooth neck. Blacklight had come here to seduce her tonight, Overdose knew as she drank, but SHE was the one who was going to seduce HIM...HER way.  
  
With that in mind, she came up for air, eyes sparkling with mischief over the top of the glass as she looked across it--  
  
--into Depth Charge's optics. His arms were the ones around her now, and she was sitting in HIS lap, not Blacklight's. Come to think of it, she wasn't in the exotic dance bar any more. They were on a beach on the planet she had crashed on...  
  
She blinked, taking the change of identity in stride, and decided that he'd do just as well. "That was an interesting trick," she said thoughtfully, rubbing the rim of the glass against her bottom lip as a childishly curious thought with a cunning twist took shape. She giggled. "Is there a way to get both of you here at once?"  
  
"I don't know how you can stand this chaos," a voice that had recently become familiar interrupted whatever the manta ray had been about to say in return, disgust dripping from the words as the dark shadow suddenly loomed over the two sitting on the sand. "Everything changes so...ILLOGICALLY...and you love it." Venom sneered as Depth Charge melted away with the beach, leaving Overdose sitting cross-legged on a random swirl of thoughts and colors in the depths of her own sleeping mind. "You are delaying, insane one. I want my vengeance!"  
  
"Why?" the finned femme asked innocently.  
  
"Because of what that pathetic robot did to me...us."   
  
Tilted eyes widened up at her. "Why?"  
  
The purple symbol on the huge black robot's helmet seemed to develop an angry shimmer of dark light. "Because you didn't follow what LOGIC told you to do and ended up as a prisoner of the Predacon Secret Police as a result!"  
  
Overdose seemed to think that over. "Why?" she asked again.  
  
"Because the Tripedicus Council is smart enough to realize that they can exploit Cybertron even though the Maximal High Council is currently in control." Venom laughed unpleasantly. "An admirable idea, although they don't take it far enough for my taste."  
  
"Why?"  
  
"Because I prefer to kill anything that gets in my way, not try and scheme around it."  
  
"Why?"  
  
Venom gave the sea slug a strange look. The crazy femme was poking at one of her fins, not seeming to pay any attention to what her sane predecessor was saying. With Overdose, looks were often deceiving, but... "You're not going to distract me that easily," the deadly robot gritted out. "I want this...Tarantulas...to be tortured, and I want it NOW!"  
  
Overdose smiled up at her. "Why?"  
  
"Oh, wake up and get to work, you little fool!!" Venom watched the dominant mind in their body rise up towards reality, angered once again despite herself at the casual insanity of the colored female. She cursed under her breath, jaw clenching as she turned away from the infuriating sight of the chaos that surrounded her, entrapped her, contained her. "What are you looking at?!" she yelled at the distant dark blue and gold shadow that merely flashed a tiny, weary smile at the murderer's frustration.  
  
Above them, Overdose laughed.  
  
* * * * *  
  
Optimus Primal looked down, his face serious as he studied the smaller form of the manta ray. He wasn't quite sure what to think of Depth Charge any more. Overdose's revelation of what he was truly like had shocked the Maximals, but Blackarachnia had quietly taken the Maximal leader aside and told him about what had the ray-bot had said to her in his quarters when she had confronted him. All that Overdose had said was true...but in forcing him to face that truth, she had somehow been made into a symbol of forgiveness by Depth Charge. Repentance for past deeds. He had disappeared from the base, refusing to acknowledge radio signals as he searched for the sea slug.  
  
And now he had found her...and she had found someone else.  
  
All of which was creating a confused image of what Depth Charge was really like in his mind. "You're sure she'll kill him?" he asked finally, putting aside questions of the ray's morals in favor of the immediate crisis.  
  
Depth Charge nodded. "Most likely very slowly," he said grimly, "if what Rampage told us all about her hobby was correct." He hid a wince at the thought of what torture another 'bot could do to another; the memories of Omicron were still sickeningly clear in his mind. "We can't let her do that," he said after a moment.  
  
"Eh! Why not? I ain't puttin' my life on da line for no Pred, and 'SPECIALLY not dat eight-eyed one." Rattrap crossed his arms and leaned against the wall beside him, eyes narrowed. "If dat crazy femme wants ta kill him, it ain't nothin' off my tail. If she's lookin' for volunteers ta try her hobby, I'm not gonna put myself in her way."  
  
"Er...Big-Bot, she wouldn't really, uh, TORTURE Tarantulas, will she?" Cheetor looked at his leader for reassurance that someone who could laugh as much as Overdose did wasn't really the killer that she was being described as. "I mean, we can't let her do something like that, can we? He surrendered to us..." He looked down, guiltily aware that the spider had vanished while he was on guard.  
  
"She'll do it," Blackarachnia said coldly, staring at Rattrap. "Have you ever seen what Tarantulas left of his live meals, Rattrap?" she said suddenly after a moment's silence. "I think you have. Maybe the next time I catch a rat, I'll come eat it in front of you, screaming and trying to get free the whole way down." Silverbolt put a hand on her shoulder, stopping her from stepping forward towards the Maximal rat. She looked up at him and sighed, then turned to face Rattrap again. He was looking a bit ill at the description of what her next prey might go through. "That's torture," Blackarachnia said, looking around at all of the Maximals, who stared back at her in surprise. "Do you want a fellow Cybertronian, even one like Tarantulas," she made a small face, " to go through that?"  
  
"No," Depth Charge said, his voice solid with conviction.  
  
Rattrap couldn't meet her eyes. "...nah, I guess not," he said softly.  
  
"I abhor harming females, but more harm will come from this if we do not," Silverbolt said sadly, holding Blackarachnia close. "We must free Tarantulas."  
  
"Yeah," Cheetor added slowly, but he wouldn't look anyone in the eyes. "I just...can't believe she's really like that. Overdose is just so ultra gear, you know?" He sighed heavily.  
  
Optimus put one of his large hands on the cat's shoulder. "Even at her, uh, 'picnic', Rampage accompanied her," he told the face that looked up at him.  
  
"But she wouldn't let him attack us..." Cheetor mumbled, and the other Maximals shifted uneasily, each disturbed by what Overdose was and had done since her arrival.  
  
"Cornered animals are dangerous," Rhinox rumbled into the silence. "How are we going to get Tarantulas out alive? We can't go through the underwater tunnels you described, Depth Charge. We don't have aquatic beast modes." At the ray's helplessly frustrated shrug, he frowned. "You mentioned ventilation."  
  
"Yeah. I could see the sky through the hole in the ceiling. I don't know if there were more..."  
  
"It's a start," Optimus said decisively. "We can work from there. Maximals, move out!"  
  
* * * * *   
  
The small cave was dark, but the soft glow of the force shield across the entrance provided enough light for Tarantulas to desperately pick at the bonds around his ankles with his tied hands. Overdose had tied him hand and foot but hadn't tied his wrists behind his back in a move that would be foolish had this been normal circumstances. As it was, the knots were so tight they wouldn't unknot and the ropes were made of some sort of metal that wouldn't break, as hard as he tried. He had been trying for what seemed like a long time, but terror could have deceived his sense of time.  
  
He almost gave up in despair as the loop he had been working at slipped from his fingers again, but a sudden loosening around his left ankle gave him a surge of hope. A couple moments more, and that loop was free, and he was following it around his right ankle. The rope was snugly secured in about six or seven figure-eight loops around his lower legs. He only had to undo five more!  
  
With a nervous look at the mouth of the cave, Tarantulas concentrated on getting free, slowly but surely.  
  
* * * * *  
  
What are you doing NOW?!  
  
"Making breakfast."  
  
WHY--?!  
  
"Because I still have a couple tacos left over." Overdose tested the oil she had poured into one of her ship's dented side panels in place of a conventional frying pan. It sizzled and popped over the heating coil she had rigged up, giving off a nose-numbing smell (she didn't seem to notice) as she poured in her 'batter'. Actually, she had just shredded the slightly stale remains of her picnic and blended it all together. It LOOKED kind of edible. "I mean, I don't really HAVE to eat, but since I don't have any energon and I don't feel like leaving home to find any, this makes the most sense, doesn't it?" She flipped the blob to its other side in the oil to fry. "Good source of energy with dozens of essential vitamins and minerals and all that."  
  
Whatever. Just as long as you eventually get around to business.  
  
A dark flurry of color crossed the sea slug's fins. "Oh, I will..." she crooned softly, but then her fins returned to normal. "...after breakfast, that is!" she added cheerfully.  
  
"Dudtte? Are you, like, talking to me?"  
  
"Hm?" Overdose blinked, glancing around. "Bob? No, I'm talking to one of the voices in my head. She's mean, but it'd be rude to ignore her, wouldn't it?" She tipped her head to one side, studying the cooking blob of food (in theory) intently.  
  
A brief silence filled the caverns. Then, "Like, dudette? Are you, like, tripping?"  
  
"Tripping?" She looked at her feet uncertainly. They certainly didn't LOOK tangled up in themselves. "I'm sitting down, Bob..."  
  
"Like, dudette, I like meant did you take, like, those totally gnarly pills today?" The computer's voice was completely emotionless.  
  
Snapping her fingers, Overdose leapt to her feet. "No! I haven't yet! Thanks for reminding me, Bob!...um, Bob?" She looked around the cluttered cavern uncertainly. "Where are you, anyway?"  
  
"Like, dudette. Look up."  
  
She did and found herself staring at her computer's plain gray form...on the ceiling. "How'd you get up there?" she asked.  
  
"You, like, glued me up here, like, when you woke up, 'cause I was, like, getting on your nerves. Then you totally, like, started talking to yourself again, dudette. It's, like, a majorly bad habit."  
  
"Is not."  
  
"Like, it is."  
  
Overdose directed a glare up at the computer. "Is NOT." She rummaged around on the junk-covered floor, eventually emerging with a pill bottle It went into the boiling oil, too, plastic bottle and all. "And how would YOU know, anyway?" Smoke began rising from the make-shift pan. Maybe she shouldn't have used motor oil to cook with...but, then again, she had used the last of her cooking oil in an engine. The thought that the switch of oils may have caused that engine's malfunction was quickly dismissed.  
  
"Dudette, like, you told me so."  
  
"When?"  
  
"When you, like, woke up, dudette."  
  
"Oh." The colorful femme lost interest as she caught sight of something sparkly further into the pile of junk. She promptly dove after it. It turned out to be a wad of some kind of sticky, shiny substance, which occupied much of her attention when she got her hands stuck in it. "Eee! It's GOT me!!" Overdose rolled across the cavern, narrowly missing her smoking cooking things as she fought with the gooey stuff.  
  
* * * * *  
  
His hands were still tied, but at least his legs were free. Tarantulas climbed to his feet and edged to the front of the small cave to look out the entrance cautiously. The force field didn't react to his presence or even shock him when he touched it. It just stopped him from leaving the cave. Giving up on the front of the cave, he began to investigate the back in hopes that Overdose's strange computer hadn't shielded the entire place. He felt his way along the walls, looking for weak spots, hollows, anything that could give him a way to retreat. ANYTHING!  
  
His searching hands slid into a shadowed area camouflaged by the weak light from the force field...and he didn't feel anything but air. The shadowed area was a crack in the wall! Admittedly, it was narrow enough that he'd be leaving scraps of himself behind when he squeezed though...but he COULD get through! Afraid to make any noise, he managed not to exclaim with relieved hope as he forced himself into the small vertical slash in the cave wall, holding his bound hands up above his head to pass through and scraping the front and back of his body raw before popping into a small hollow that gave him some breathing room.  
  
He paused inside, searching the tunnel with his thermal vision and seeing nothing but the tiny amount of space he'd have to fit himself through. But the tunnel DID keep going!  
  
Tarantulas grimly raised his hands to his neck for a moment before starting forward again. The collar felt cold to the touch, and seemed to be part of him. The potential for pain through it was a terrifying thought in his mind. Overdose could press any of the buttons on its remote control at any time, and it was almost certain that she would once she discovered he was missing. He kept moving, though. Pain far away from the insane female was a much better choice than pain up close and personal.   
  
He wasn't looking forward to either one, anyway.  
  
* * * * *  
  
Overdose was currently poking at the steadily blackening mixed blob of leftovers and the once-shiny glob she had also added into the oil while she munched on the crisped bottle of pills she had just fished out of it. "Crunchy," she said around the bottle happily. "You think the plastic will cause any side affects?"  
  
"Like, dudette--"  
  
"But it's not like we'd really be able to tell, anyway," she chattered on, "because these are all experimental, but it was an interesting thought, and doesn't this mark on the wall look like that weird fish I ate yesterday--"  
  
"Dudette--"  
  
"--will you stop interrupting me? I swear, you're as bad as Rampage sometimes, you rude, uncouth, barbarian computer, you. I'm going to reprogram you someday, have I mentioned that? And I--"  
  
"Like, yeah, dudette, but--"  
  
"--and there you go AGAIN. What did I just say? Oh, I forget. You know, I don't think that I really want to eat this thing after all." Overdose poked at the blackened lump frying in the oil. Her eyes whirled distractedly, but then she blinked and glanced up in puzzlement. "Where you saying something, Bob?" she asked absently.  
  
If computers could have emotions and be able to sigh, by all rights Bob would have been exasperated and sighing. Then again, if Bob had emotions and lived with Overdose, he would have had a nervous breakdown LONG ago. "Like, yeah, dudette. The prisoner's, like, totally escaped."  
  
Overdose smiled smugly, the colors in her eyes whirling faster. "As that purple guy, um, whatever-his-name-is, would put it: yessss..."  
  
* * * * *  
  
There was a light at the end of the tunnel, but Tarantulas wasn't exactly filled with happiness at the sight. It was artificial light, caused by artificial means, which meant that the tunnel he was squeezing through ended in Overdose's caverns. It wasn't like he had a huge chance of escape since as far as he knew the entrance the sea slug had taken him through was covered with water and in the middle of a maze, but he had hoped that somewhere in this cave system was another exit closer to the surface. He wasn't completely sure of how the mad femme had gotten him down here in the first place since she had used the collar around his neck most of the way so that he was paralyzed from the pain and easier to handle, but he was pretty sure that he couldn't duplicate it. He was stuck down here under the water, trapped with Overdose.  
  
Unless there was another exit.  
  
And the only way he was going to find out if it existed was if he risked emerging from the narrow tunnels and into the inhabited area Overdose had claimed.   
  
Tarantulas strained his hearing as he inched forward. There was no sound, and he dared to slowly peek out. A quick glance showed that he was in another small cave, but this one was filled with junk. Well, not really JUNK. Just...lots and lots of THINGS.  
  
Including weapons. Odd weapons, but usable.  
  
The crack in the wall was slightly narrower that the one he had used to escape from the holding cave, but the sight of the knives and other sharp objects so close to his grasp gave him the incentive he needed to rip free. Unfortunately, that freedom came at the price of tears across his shoulders and chest...and a loud rasp. At least, it seemed loud.  
  
But at the same time, an echoing shriek of amusement came from somewhere else in the cave system. "Fire in the hole!" yelled the frighteningly familiar voice, and a rumbling explosion followed her yell.  
  
Tarantulas tensed and dove for the knives, ignoring the pain and awkwardness of his bound wrists as he picked the longest one off of the strange rack it and the other weird weapons were on. He came up with his back against the cave wall defensively, watching the entrance to the cave and holding the knife in front of himself with both hands.  
  
"Note to self: don't cook with motor oil! Bob, are you alright?! Whoa, I think it melted the ceiling..."  
  
Overdose's yelling showed no sign that she had heard him, and he relaxed slightly from his panic. He waited for a while, before venturing through the piles of objects randomly strewn throughout the room towards the cave entrance. He had to get out of here!  
  
The spider approached the entrance slowly and carefully, making sure that he didn't make any noise. In the cave system, that would give him away as surely as Overdose had given away HER position. He ended up coming at it from the side as it was the only clear path he could find. Pausing a moment to strain his hearing again, he started to look out into the tunnel.  
  
"Where'd I leave my repair stuff, Bob? Left or right side?"  
  
Pure terror shot through him, causing him to freeze in place.  
  
Overdose was RIGHT OUTSIDE the cave. Only an arm's length away. Looking into the cave on the other side of the tunnel.   
  
Tarantulas eased back out of sight in case she turned around, but he knew he wasn't near being safe. The knife in his hands began to waver as his hands shook with fear. If she looked into this cave, he'd have one chance to strike. One. She'd incapacitate him in a moment if he missed. She might anyway.  
  
He silently pleaded with every god he'd ever heard of that she wouldn't discover him, his panic building as the sea slug rummaged around in the opposite cave and didn't find her repair kit. She was loudly vocal in her opinion that gremlins had stolen it.  
  
"It's gotta be around here somewhere...well, maybe it's over there."  
  
Hearing her footsteps shuffle through the other cave, Tarantulas stifled a shudder and tried to prepare himself. His doom was walking closer...closer...  
  
"Oh, here it is. How'd it get under there? Slagging thing!" Something crashed. "Bob, make a memo: get caverns sprayed for gremlin infestations."  
  
"Memo, like, made, dudette."  
  
Overdose sighed and Tarantulas trembled. "I mean, how else could it have gotten under there? Would I have put that there?!"  
  
"Like, yeah."  
  
"Shaddup, Bob."  
  
"Like, shutting up, dudette..."  
  
"ARGH! I can't win! First you, then gremlins! What's next, an evil twin?!"  
  
The spider slumped against the wall weakly, listening to the voice of his doom moving away, arguing with herself about the possibilities of having an evil gremlin twin. That had been close. VERY close. It had been so close he wasn't sure he could get his legs to work again right away since his knee joints felt like gelatin.  
  
Regardless of the state of his knees, though, he HAD to get out of here. He had been lucky that Overdose had missed him; he doubted that he'd be so lucky again.   
  
Holding the knife like a talisman against insanity, he cautiously crept out of the cave and into the tunnel, searching for an escape route.  
  
* * * * *  
  
Depth Charge pointed at the island sitting low in the water ahead. "There it is." Strange how the surface of the island reflected Overdose, he mused as he airlifted Rattrap towards its brightly flowered shores. Greenery abounded along the soft curves of the beaches, but a stark, black cliff thrust straight up from the lush foliage to drop abruptly to the sea on the opposite side of the island.  
  
Beauty and danger, attracting unwary tourists to their deaths?  
  
"Spread out!" Optimus ordered. "Search for any caves or openings!"  
  
* * * * *  
  
The lights were strung everywhere pretty randomly, so Tarantulas had no idea where he was going. All he knew was that whenever Overdose made a sound (which was frequently), he tried to move away from it. Unfortunately, she seemed to be moving, too!  
  
That's how he ended up stumbling into a room blackened by a recent explosion. "Oh, no..." he moaned under his breath. Most of Overdose's outbursts had been directed at cleaning up the mess her...breakfast...had made and preparing for something else. He had a sickeningly clear idea of what that 'something else' was. Now he was right where he didn't want to be! "Nooooo..."  
  
"You're starting to sound like that purple guy," a cheerful voice said from behind him, and he whirled to see a bright collage of fins. They waved colorfully, changing and swirling as their owner turned around to face him. Her eyes lit up with delight. "Hey, what a great guy! You found my missing knife!" She pointed at the weapon shaking in his hands and smiled. "I knew I collected the whole set...they offered me a special bonus knife if I bought the entire interrogation kit, and that's what I did!" Overdose waved a hand at the rack she had been dragging into the room.  
  
Tarantulas stared at the blank slot where he had taken the knife he was holding from, and a pitiful sound of terror pushed from his throat. An interrogation kit. All those sharp, pointy objects were an interrogation kit.  
  
"Mind putting it back, now?" the femme asked, her voice shading a bit more menacing. "That would make me happy, and you want me to be happy, right?" One of her hands dipped into her chaos of fins, and Tarantulas caught a glimpse of a thin black rectangle with glowing green buttons. The remote!  
  
"O-of course, hehehahehehahahe! A-anything to k-keep you happy!" he stammered with a nervous laugh. He carefully edged forward, trying to keep as much room between the femme and himself as possible. His visor locked on the remote control with fascinated horror as he fumbled to replace the knife. Don't let her use that...he still remember the pain all too well!  
  
Her eyes were narrow and dark, but her lips were still smiling. "Now, be a nice little guest and sit down. I made something for you to eat." The smile was almost malicious with poisoned happiness as she calmly pointed at the charred seat she had pried out of her Star Hopper.  
  
Tarantulas gulped and slowly moved towards the seat, making no sudden moves and easing down into the burned chair, never taking his gaze from her the entire time. She smirked merrily and presented him with a hunk of smoking charcoal that gave off a noxious smell. He recoiled instinctively. "N-no, thank you," he dared to say.  
  
Her smile vanished.  
  
The movement was almost too fast for him to see.  
  
Tarantulas screamed in fear for the brief moment before his voice choked off as his throat closed involuntarily; Overdose's hand had done it for him. The crazy femme lifted him out of the seat by his neck with ease, ignoring the scrabbling of his bound hands, and he was treated to an up close and personal look at the sneer now on her face.  
  
"I had thought to give you a last meal, Eightline, but it's okay with me if you don't," she chuckled darkly. "We can start right away." A sinuous movement of her body moved her out of the panicked kick he tried to get her with. His visor flickered desperately as something inside her choke-hold crunched with the sick sound of collapsing metal. Her face suddenly turned more pleasant as she watched him fight to stay conscious, a look of curiosity entering her eyes and making them swirl with bright yellows and blues. "I wonder how long you'll hold out on me before the pain finally forces you to tell the truth?"  
  
Overdose opened her hand abruptly, releasing the limp form of the spider and sending him crashing to the floor. He moaned, barely able to move, much less fight back as she knelt by his side and secured his tied hands to a ring on the floor above his head. He did manage a weak whimper as she smiled down at him.  
  
"Lemme see...how shall we start?" She picked up one of the pieces of the interrogation kit, a forked metal knife, and ran it down the cavern wall. "How about with...what are you doing on this planet?" Slivers of rock flaked away from the new grooves carved in the wall, and Overdose pricked her finger on the edge of the knife. "Oh, good. It's still sharp!" She giggled and bounced in place. "You've got to love Hythian manufactured metal goods. They hold an edge no matter WHAT you do with them! And speaking of which..." Her attention returned to the trapped spider on the floor.   
  
Tarantulas rasped in a breath through his injured throat. "The Tripedicus Council sent me," he said desperately, visor locked on the knife in her hand.  
  
The colors in her eyes managed a unique effect for a transformer with optics: they rolled. "No, really? I never would have guessed." The knife flipped in the air as she tossed it casually...and got stuck, tines first, in the ceiling next to a semi-charred gray rectangle. "Ah, slag," Overdose groused, staring up at it. "Now what am I supposed to do?"  
  
Forget about the tool. There are more important matters at hand.  
  
"Really?" She looked at her hands, curling them into fists to prove that, yes, they were empty. "Hey, I think I chipped a nail...but anyway, where? I don't see anything."  
  
Vengeance.  
  
"Vengeance? Yeah, that would be nice. But what does that have to do with my hands?" The mental scream of frustration her question caused made her look up at the ceiling in confusion, eyes swirling merrily. "You know, I have some pills that could help you relax a little. They also knock you out, but that's just a side affect. Er, oh so the doctors told me when they tried to make me eat them, but then I killed them all so I don't know if they really worked or not. I mean, I just snatched the pills on my way out. I haven't tried them yet. I was kind of figuring on testing them on the next PSP officer I ran across before I try 'em." She paused to look to the side as Tarantulas made a tiny sound of strangled protest. "Hmm? Who are you? Do I know you? And why are you tied up like that if we've just met?" A bemused look crossed her face. "That's more of a second date thing..."  
  
Overdose!  
  
The crazy femme looked back up at the ceiling. "What?"  
  
"It'd...it'd be nice if you'd let me go," Tarantulas risked saying, hoping frantically that she really DIDN'T remember who he was. Her sudden conversation with the ceiling seemed to be distracting her from him! "Please?" he added when she turned to look at him again, another slightly puzzled look crossing her face and absolutely no trace of recognition in those sparkling eyes.  
  
Don't you dare, you malfunctioning scrap heap!  
  
"He's polite; you're mean. What do you THINK I'm going to do?" Overdose cheerfully asked the ceiling while Tarantulas blankly wondered who she was talking to. Then she skipped over to sit by his head. "So...what's a guy like you doing in a place like this?" she asked coyly.  
  
He gulped. Was she...flirting with him?! "Ummmm...trying to get out?" he replied hesitantly. He realized it must be the wrong answer when she pouted, and his mind scrambled for something to say to someone who had wanted to kill him only moments before. His experience with lying to Megatron came to the fore. "That is to say that, er, hehahehaheh, as much as I enjoy your company, something back in my lab urgently requires my attention," he lied through his mandibles.  
  
"Oh. Well, in that case..." A flick of her hand loosed the bonds from the ring on the floor.  
  
Amazed, he stared up at her until she offered him a hand up from the floor. He dazedly accepted with his still-tied hands. "Thank you--" he started to say belatedly.  
  
Overdose! Don't! Kill him!  
  
"Oh, shut up!" Overdose suddenly screamed at the ceiling. She blinked as the spider jumped away from her. "What?"  
  
Shaking, he backed away from her. Had she been talking to him or to the mysterious person apparently in the ceiling?!   
  
She gave him a hurt look. "Well, if you have to leave that quickly, it's the second tunnel to the left. No," she corrected herself as Tarantulas started to go in that direction, and he froze as she tapped the interrogation rack with an idle finger. "No, you probably can't get out the sea entrance. Did you come in that way?" Tarantulas shrugged hopelessly. He had been in too much pain to remember, but she didn't seem to care if he answered or not because she immediately began to draw a map visible only to her in the air. "Left, no...right at the fork, but it's tricky because the ground's covered with rocks so you have to almost climb through on the walls, but if you get past that it's pretty simple to get to the surface by taking the cracked tunnel through the cave where I put the dashboard...yes!" She clapped her hands. "That's all you've got to do."  
  
"Huh?" Hopelessly confused from watching her draw in thin air, Tarantulas shook his head. "Uh...can you tell me that again?"  
  
She smiled. "I'll do better than that! I'll SHOW you!"  
  
The spider flinched. "I, um, I don't want to waste more of your precious time, Overdose, really..."  
  
"Nonsense!" Overdose bounced in a circle, clapping her hands and giggling. "Just call me Tour Guide Barbie! Now, if you'll direct your attention to the left of this room, you'll see my fascinating collection of, er, stuff. But please don't touch! Remember, anything you say or do can be held against you in a legal court of law; since we're stranded in the middle of nowhere, go ahead and do whatever you want--"  
  
Tarantulas followed the happily chattering sea slug out of the burnt room, baffled by her cataloging of her rooms. What the slag was a 'Barbie', anyway?! 


	2. Part 2

* * * * *  
  
Part Two  
  
Despite his nervous protesting, Overdose had insisted that she show him out of the cavern system. Tarantulas didn't want to be near her a moment longer than he had to. Her continuing argument with the ceiling only made him all the more eager to escape this place.  
  
It sounded more difficult than it actually was. Three left turns, one fork in the tunnels, some rock climbing, and most of his nerves later, they were standing in front of what she assured him was a tunnel leading to the surface.  
  
"I found it accidentally," Overdose was saying. "I was really looking for a way to get Rampage in here when I found this. He's awful big for the underwater route," she confided in him. "Maybe he needs to go on a diet. What do you think?"  
  
It took him a moment to get through her general ramblings. "I suppose so," he said cautiously, going for a neutral answer.  
  
She didn't take it that way.  
  
"Are you saying that he's fat?!?!" Overdose screamed suddenly, slamming him against the tunnel wall. "He's MY friend and I won't stand for it, you hear me?! Who do you think you ARE, anyway, coming in here and telling me that Rampage is fat?! He's a ROBOT! Robots can't GET fat!!!" she yelled in his face, her fins violently changing colors and swirling with dark reds and oranges. Then abruptly...pastel. Her eyes became light purple tinged with curious tints of pink. "Do you think that our organic bodies can get fat? What else can they do? I already know that if I eat something, my body can make it into energy so I don't have to go find energon, but do you think that--"  
  
Tarantulas blinked, only inches away from his captor's face as she jumped from topic to topic, asking questions she didn't wait for answers on and mostly ignoring the fact that she had him pinned against the wall. "....Overdose?" he asked after she finally trailed off.  
  
"Hmm? Yes?" Her eyes seemed to focus on him.  
  
"Can you let me down now?"  
  
"Oh! Sure." She grinned. "And I don't care what she says; you're kind of nice to have around."  
  
He edged towards the tunnel to the surface. 'she says'? He didn't think he wanted to know. "Ah, thanks," he mumbled awkwardly.  
  
"I'm almost tempted to keep you."  
  
Tarantulas froze, visor snapping wide. "You're joking, right?" He chuckled nervously when she didn't answer immediately. "Right?!"  
  
She looked at him seriously, pastel fins and eyes swirling gently. "No. But I'm ALMOST tempted."  
  
The spider ALMOST collapsed with relief. "Well, I should be going!" he said brightly, the tension making him giddy. "I'll, um, see you later!" With that, he waved with his tied hands and quickly walked up the tunnel.  
  
Overdose watched him leave regretfully. It would be a little while until he reached the surface, but it was like he had left her standing at her door without a goodnight kiss. Then again, he probably didn't know that human custom. The only reason she did was because she had spent a lot of time on Earth laughing at the humans and their weird habits...which she had promptly adopted. She LIKED humans. Dirty, disgusting, territorial animals, but they really were fascinating. Organics like them made up most of the known universe. Most robotic life forms were originally made by organics some time or other.  
  
Besides, now she had organic parts. And it was FUN!  
  
Do you know who you just let through your fingers?   
  
At least the voice was more polite this time, Overdose mused as she turned to walk back towards her main caverns. "Who?" she asked, playing along.  
  
Goomba's killer.  
  
The words were carefully calculated for the hardest impact, and Venom had been finding the best ones to use since she realized the insane mind wasn't listening to her. She knew she had found the right ones when Overdose stopped in her tracks. A feral snarl twisted the femme's lips, and black immediately edged her fins and eyes, shooting inward to create patterns of dark swirls. The darkness spread. Slowly, but it did, and Venom felt grim satisfaction at what her words had started.  
  
But Overdose didn't move. Still facing away from the tunnel to the surface, she made no move to turn around and pursue him. Tarantulas had started running the moment he had been out of sight. She was far behind. Her delay cost her.  
  
Why aren't you hunting him down?!  
  
Overdose smiled gently at Venom's anger. "Oh, I don't have to," she said quietly and calmly, folding her legs to sit down in the middle of the cavern she was in. She felt the dark one's confusion and wariness at her action.  
  
What do you mean?  
  
She arranged herself comfortably, still smiling. "I forgot to do something, you see." Venom wordlessly urged her to continue as she reclined on the ground. "It's nothing big, I guess. I just forgot to ask Bob to lower the shield around the cave system."  
  
Silence. Water dripped from above. A faint scrambling sound that might have been Tarantulas running in the distance.   
  
Then, softly, in perfect accordance, they began to laugh.  
  
* * * * *   
  
He was too far away to hear the quiet sound when he ran straight into a wall. At least, that was what it felt like.  
  
But the tunnel ahead was clear!  
  
"No! Not when I'm this close!" He rammed against it again, frantically trying to get through the invisible wall. "NO!" Shoving his shoulder against it, he strained until his vision swam with the stress. There was nothing under his shoulder that could account for what he felt. Just...just the tunnel, continuing upwards without him. He pounded on the wall with his tied hands. "No," he whispered. "Not...not now."  
  
* * * * *   
  
"Think he's gotten there by now?" Overdose spun the tiny dagger around in her fingers, lazily watching it twirl. She liked sharp things. She had a collection of them she wanted to show Tarantulas.   
  
Venom chuckled nastily. Oh, I believe so.  
  
"Well, that's good. I was getting bored."  
  
My compliments, my dear. You really are a queen of torture, both psychological and physical. He must be completely panicked by now.  
  
She rolled her eye colors. "Don't call me 'my dear'. You sound like that purple guy...what's his name...um..." She rolled over onto her front, a frown of confusion crossing her face. "He lives in that one really gloomy place...you know, the one with the bad lighting? Rampage doesn't like him...hey! Wonder whatever happened to him, anyway. I mean, Depth Charge came back to the Maximal base just like we planned, but I never even thought about Rampage! Do you think he's alright?"  
  
If I'm lucky, he's dead.  
  
Now she was really confused. "He can't be dead. He's immortal!"  
  
Just give me a couple cycles, and I'll solve that problem.  
  
"He never told me it was a problem...no, wait." She blinked a couple times. "That time when he made me mad back at prison, he might have made a reference to immortality being a bad thing. But that was because I had torn his arms off, wasn't it? All I did was inject him with poison this time!" Sighing, she rolled over again to stare up at the ceiling. "Honestly, males overreact so much over the silliest things. And they're so illogical!" Venom projected a feeling of sarcastic disbelief at that. "No, really. That idea I talked with the ape about, for instance. I can't be a Maximal because of Rampage, obviously, but I can't be a Predacon because they'll try and control me. But I also can't be neutral because then I'm stuck in the middle and I'll get bored. Strange things happen when I get bored."  
  
Like now?  
  
"I was thinking of that tidal wave I caused. Who knew that blowing up the satellite's reactor would cause it to crash in the ocean?"  
  
You did.  
  
"Only in theory. ANYWAY, my idea to be a Predacon AND a Maximal was perfectly logical. Do you think the ape was only humoring me when he said he'd consider it? I don't know what I could do to 'earn' my way into the Predacons, though, so I guess it doesn't matter." Overdose frowned idly. "I think he's probably had enough time to try and escape now, hasn't he? I don't want him to have too long to get his hopes down. It makes them so much more fun when they still have some left. It takes longer to break them, but that's what you want in his case."  
  
Venom gave a low laugh of anticipation. THIS is why she could tolerate the craziness for now. The scientific but spontaneous methods of torture stored inside Overdose's head would be more than amusing when applied to the once-Lieutenant Eightline. She had ISSUES with him, and it would be most satisfying to discuss them with him between his screams. Or maybe she'd just sit back and enjoy.  
  
Yes. By all means, let's retrieve him.  
  
It was Overdose's turn to give a low laugh. "Why waste the energy it would take for me to get up and drag him back?"  
  
I...don't understand.  
  
"Just call me lazy." Her fingers deftly dipped into her fins and held up a black remote. "Let the fun begin, hmm?" She chuckled in chorus with the voice in her head, her own issues with Tarantulas fresh in her mind. "It's almost a pity, though," she sighed mournfully, taking her time as she selected which button she wanted to push.   
  
What is?  
  
"He WAS polite..."  
  
The button pressed down.  
  
* * * * *   
  
He had been leaning against the barrier, staring at the freedom he couldn't reach, when the pain seared through him from the collar he hadn't gotten up the courage to ask her to remove when he had the chance. This time he could scream. Overdose had been careful; the agony wasn't quite severe enough to paralyze him. Instead, he found himself curling up around himself, tied hands clawing at his neck.  
  
He didn't seem to have control of his body. His throat kept rasping out screams while his hands clutched at the collar, and involuntarily he found himself stumbling back down the tunnel, away from the freedom denied him. Back towards the only one who could stop the pain. Back towards someone who would only make it worse.  
  
Sickened and wracked with the agony of NOW, he kept going. He couldn't stand the pain! The torture the future would hold paled against what he was going through now; it didn't feel like anything could possibly be worse, although his mind weakly said otherwise. So he kept going; running, walking, stumbling, even crawling.  
  
* * * * *  
  
Rattrap perked his ears up, swiveling them around as he thought he heard a noise. It could have been the wind howling through the numerous caves riddling the cliffside, but...  
  
"Kiddo, ya hear dat?" he whispered into his commlink. All of the other Maximals (minus Blackarachnia because she was guarding the base) were across the island, but the cheetah was above him on the cliff, just coming out of one of the holes. If the cat had heard it too, then maybe--  
  
"Yeah, I sure do, Rattrap! I thought it was just me, but if we both hear it then we must have found a way in!" Cheetor's excited voice came back to him.   
  
There was a click on their radios. "Have you found something?" Optimus asked.  
  
"We mighta," Rattrap said back, peering down the cliff as he tried to trace the sound back to its source. "Da problem is, dere's 'bout six zillion caves da sound we're hearin' mighta come from."  
  
"I'm on my way," Rhinox's voice responded.  
  
"I shall also endeavor to reach you." Rattrap sneered silently at Silverbolt's elaborate speech patterns but didn't say anything...for once.  
  
"I'll meet you there," Optimus said.   
  
"I'm going to try the underwater maze again," Depth Charge's gravelly voice stated. He had gotten lost the first time he had tried and had come out again to try and map out the way he had gone before. Apparently he was ready for a second try. He didn't wait to hear if anyone else had anything to say about it.  
  
Optimus added one last warning: "Be careful, everyone. Overdose is dangerously unstable."   
  
"Da understatement of da day," Rattrap grumbled.  
  
* * * * *  
  
Overdose yawned. "He sure is slow." She stopped in mid-yawn to consider that and the sound of the screaming getting nearer. "But he's loud, so that might make up for it." Finishing her yawn, she stretched. "Time to get up and grab him," she decided.  
  
Wait.  
  
She paused. "Hmm?"  
  
I want to watch him come in.  
  
"Well...I guess it can't hurt me." Overdose smirked. "And it WILL hurt him. Bonus!" She settled down on the floor again, propping her head up on her hand so she could watch the tunnel the screams were echoing down. Her laziness changed into hyperness as the source drew close. Soon she jumped to her feet and grinned, waiting impatiently again.  
  
Then she frowned and carefully arranged her fins and posture.  
  
What are you doing?  
  
"You'll see."  
  
And Venom did see, as Tarantulas came into sight down the tunnel. He looked at the figure standing in the darkness, brightly colored fins constantly shifting, and gasped for breath to say something. The pain forced a shriek out instead of words, and he collapsed to his knees. A kind smile crossed the face of the sea slug transformer, though, and he felt a surge of hope at her expression. Wailing with agony, he crawled towards her. The dark femme was delighted. She eagerly watched him creep on hands and knees to her feet.  
  
You really do know what you're doing...  
  
"Don't sound so surprised," Overdose muttered under her breath as she bent to lift the shuddering spider to his feet by his bound hands.  
  
"Mercy," Tarantulas managed to say hoarsely, but the word ended in another scream. His hands couldn't go to his collar, however. They were captured in the fiery gloves of his torturer, who smiled down at him with the expression of a saint as she leaned down to put her mouth next to his audio. What she said then terrified him more than all that had gone on before:  
  
"Mercy? You'll be lucky if you find DEATH." 


	3. Part 3

* * * * *  
  
Part Three  
  
Depth Charge narrowed his eyes and cursed silently as his wide fins scraped along the underwater tunnel's walls. His beast mode wasn't made to swim in close confinement, he was finding out, but he still kept going. Somewhere in this maze was the entrance to Overdose's cave system, and he needed to find it. He could only hope the femme was actually in her caves. Optimus and Rhinox hadn't been able to find her energy signature while she had been in the Maximal base before, so they hadn't been able to scan for her. They were guessing that she had returned to her home base to torture her victim.   
  
Even a Predacon like Tarantulas didn't deserve to be tortured.  
  
A part of his mind wondered over the concern he felt. Before Overdose literally crashed into his life, revenge on the then-X had crowded out every single thought not concerning it. As the crazy femme had forced him to see, people had become obstacles in his path to revenge; things that weren't important and didn't matter. Before Overdose had come into his life, Tarantulas' fate wouldn't have meant anything to him, despite what he knew might happen.   
  
Before Overdose had changed him, he had been becoming more and more...like X. Or Rampage, as he was called now. The femme had brought him up short and forced him to look at his life; for that he owed her. He never wanted to end up like Rampage.  
  
That same part of his mind puzzled over the crab. What was Overdose to him? Why would a monster that could destroy starbases and decimate entire colonies protect a childish 'bot that had fallen into the Beast Wars? Depth Charge amended that thought as soon as his mind presented it; Overdose was no child. There was something...if not in her like a parasite, then part of her. Something pitch black and as dangerous as Rampage, but it wasn't ALL of her like Rampage. Rampage was dangerous, murderous...but Overdose was more than that. And now that the ray had seen them together, he wasn't willing to say that Rampage was all he seemed, either. There was more to both of them, but he had to agree with what the femme had told him: he should never trust her, and he would never trust Rampage.  
  
But that didn't mean that he could simply end the thoughts there. He was searching the underwater tunnel maze for an entrance to the caves, but his mind was searching for an answer to the femme inside.   
  
"Optimus to Depth Charge!"  
  
His radio jolted him from his thoughts. "Depth Charge here. What do you want, Primal?" he asked roughly. "I'm busy!"  
  
"So are we, Depth Charge," the Maximal leader snapped back, for once letting some of the exasperated anger he felt when dealing with the ray come through in his voice. The ray's eyes widened a little in surprised respect, but the ape didn't give him a chance to say anything back. "I wanted to tell you that we may have found a way in, but there's some kind of shield in place that won't let us through. However," Optimus hesitated, and when he continued his voice had lost its anger, "we can hear someone screaming. Rattrap...Rattrap says it sounds like Tarantulas."  
  
"Then we might be too late," Depth Charge said softly. He paused for a moment to turn to slip through a particularly narrow part of the tunnel. "What do you know about Overdose?" he asked when he had squeezed through, ignoring the raw sting some of the rocks left him with.  
  
There was a silence over the radio that gave the ray the impression Optimus was trying to decide to tell him or not. Then, "Not enough, Depth Charge. What I know is what she's told us or let slip. Blackarachnia thought she might be able to get closer to her, but after this, I'm not sure it's worth the risk. What do you know?"  
  
He ducked under an outcropping of rocks. "Not much more. I know some of what X's prison was like, and even then it was through high security. No details, but that facility was full of interplanetary terrorists and people too dangerous to put in a less guarded jail. In order for Overdose to survive...in order to have gotten IN there, she must have done something spectacular enough to earn it."  
  
Optimus seemed to have followed his thought, and his question was thoughtful, "If so, why haven't we heard about her?"  
  
Depth Charge let the question slide for the moment. "Ask Rattrap if he knows anything about her, but if you'll excuse me, I have things to do."   
  
* * * * *  
  
The ring on the floor was still there, but Tarantulas didn't have time to study it before Overdose had tied him down again. It probably didn't matter; he doubted she would have used a ring he might possibly be able to pull from the floor. He doubted he would have had the chance to, anyway.  
  
Only a small corner of his mind was observing this as the crazed female turned away to pry the forked knife from the ceiling. The rest was almost gibbering with terror. He had a hard time holding in a whimper as she turned back to him, her smile wicked beneath swirling eyes.  
  
"Now, about those questions..." she purred, fins darkening but smile remaining. He stared up at her, hopelessly tugging at the bonds around his wrists as she knelt down beside him and twirled the knife between her fingers. The colors in her eyes whirled faster, almost hypnotically, as she leaned closer. "Why are you here, Eightline?" She held up a hand as he started to stutter out an answer, "And don't tell me that the Tripedicus Council sent you this time. I KNOW that."  
  
He wretched his visor away from looking into her brilliant optics and shuddered hopelessly. He couldn't tell her the answer to that question. He had sworn what loyalty he had to the Council, and he couldn't just abandon it because some psycho sea slug wanted to know. "Slag you," he rasped.  
  
"Ooo, feisty!" Overdose giggled, her beast mode's fins darkening even more but her smile growing with undeniable pleasure that he dared defy her. "Good. I like that in my victims." She lowered her head suddenly to look straight into Tarantulas' turned-away face. "At first."  
  
He looked away helplessly as the knife twirled, descending slowly towards him. Then again... "They sent me to keep Megatron under control," he temporized.  
  
The forked knife stopped just above his chest. "Oh, really?" Overdose only sounded mildly interested. "Tell me more."  
  
"They...they thought he could be more trouble than he was worth. If the Maximals traced him back to them, the Council could be discovered and war could break out before we're ready." Which was true, but it wasn't the real reason he had been sent here to ancient Earth. He just hoped desperately Overdose wouldn't guess that.  
  
The femme lifted the fork enough to test its points with an orange-red finger, all of her attention apparently focused on that all-important task. "Is that all?" Tarantulas nodded frantically, visor locked on the tool of torture in her hand. "Such a shame they wasted Lieutenant Eightline on such a small assignment, now isn't it." It wasn't a question, and her smile was completely viscous with gloating triumph. "A pity you won't be returning to Cybertron to tell them about their error." The disinterested eyes with their whorls of violet and yellow-green turned to study him. "Just think what a waste it is, sending a Lieutenant to do the job of an assassin. It's funny, though; I've never known the Council to misuse its personnel before."  
  
Tarantulas stared up into those eyes and went cold. She KNEW...  
  
He didn't have any time to wonder how she had found out because the hand she had been using to test the forked knife made an abrupt motion that ended with a tiny hand laser slicing across his legs, and after that all coherent thought stopped.  
  
His screams echoed through the caverns.  
  
* * * * *  
  
Right, right, left. Left again...no, right again.  
  
Depth Charge made a tight turn into the right-hand tunnel and slammed into nothing. The impact made the water in front of him shimmer a hard green so briefly he hadn't been sure he had seen it at all, but then he swam forward again more cautiously and swept a fin against nothing. A quick trail of green followed his fin, disappearing almost as soon as it appeared.  
  
The ray swam silently in place, considering. He had apparently run into the shield Optimus had told him about, and if what the ape had updated him with later was right, it went all the way around the caves. A solid, invisible bubble of force field the Maximals had to get through. Rhinox was working on something, but the rhino was doubtful it would work.  
  
That left them waiting.  
  
* * * * *  
  
Deft fingers pulled open the first layer of armor and dipped into the wiring underneath. "Now, let's see...was it green or magenta..." Smile never fading, Overdose shrugged, picked a color, and tugged it out a little farther from its protective shell. Tarantulas' high-pitched scream told her she had picked correctly; a neurocircuitry wire lay in her grasp. "This ought to be fun."  
  
Tarantulas arched off the floor the best he could, his throat raw already from the screams being forced from him as Overdose delicately scraped her fork against the wire. Sharpened, hard metal sliced the very top of the wire open, then another layer, and another...  
  
The bared nerve-wire shrieked its pain-messages into him, and the darkened femme's low laugh rumbled in counterpoint. The pain twisted inside him, continually renewed and deepened with each flick of the femme's wrist. Tormented, it seemed to go on forever to him, but eventually the darkness hovering at the edge of his vision swept inward and swallowed him up, leaving him with a last look at the smiling face of his tormentor.  
  
The smile faded into a pout as Tarantulas' visor went black and his body suddenly went limp. Peeved, Overdose slapped him. "Wakey, wakey! Eightline, this isn't over yet!" When there was no response, she sat back and folded her arms. "Hmmph. Usually I can draw it out longer than that. Oh well!" Cheerful again, she put away the fork she had been using and selected a knife with a jagged edge. It would be entertaining to use this on his--  
  
"Yo, dudette."  
  
Her train of thought derailed, and she couldn't seem to find it again. Not surprised, she looked up at the ceiling to where her computer was stuck. "Whaddya want, Bob?" she giggled, not even remembering why she was holding a knife but happy to have it anyway. She began to clean her nails with it, absently noting that she should paint them again.  
  
"Time for, like, some totally gnarly pills."  
  
Overdose shot to her feet and clapped her hands, carelessly dropping the knife in her hands. "Really?!" She reached into a subspace compartment and retrieved her clipboard, pen, and a couple bottles of pills. "Well, gee, I don't really remember what the side-effects of this one had...I'll just put 'yodeling spaceships manned by albino robots.' That ought to tell them lots!"  
  
Overdose! Don't waste your time with this. I find it hard enough to control your insanity as it is. Continue torturing Eightline...  
  
"But I'm supposed to stay on the drug program!" Overdose argued.  
  
That's never stopped you from ignoring it before.  
  
She shrugged and put away everything she had just gotten out. "True." Then she looked down. "Oops. You really shouldn't be there, you know." The knife she had dropped remained embedded in Tarantulas' leg despite her miffed pronouncement. Grumbling, she reached down to pry it free, then paused in fascination. "On the other hand, this sort of kinda maybe is an artistic representation of my life at this point and I need to preserve it! Isn't it that right, Bob?"  
  
The computer on the ceiling scanned the offline Predacon. "Dudette, you've, like, said that, like, Lieutenant Eightline's life isn't, like, worth the energy it'd take to, like, kill him."  
  
Caught up in her artistic side, the crazy sea slug's fins broke into multiple colors. The voice in her head demanded that she return to torturing Tarantulas, but she blithely told Venom to take a hike. Instead of taking the knife out of the Predacon's leg, she went off to find something to keep it there.  
  
* * * * *  
  
He looked away from Optimus and stared out over the open sea. 'Whatcha want me ta say, Fearless Leader?" he said softly. "Dat part of my life's over."  
  
The Maximal leader looked down at Rattrap and saw some of the discomfort his question had caused. It was no secret that the rat had previously lead a shady life for a Maximal; Optimus had reviewed those part of his files before deciding to let him join his crew. "I don't want you to compromise yourself, Rattrap," he said, choosing his words carefully, "but if you know anything about Overdose that may help us..."  
  
Rattrap turned to study his leader. There was genuine concern on the big 'bot's face, and he bit back the defensive words that immediately leapt to mind. There was no reason to be defensive. He was just as much a part of this team as anyone else, and he probably owed it them to give over any information he had.  
  
That didn't mean he had to be comfortable about it.  
  
The rat glanced around carefully, noting that Silverbolt, Cheetor, and Rhinox were out of hearing. "None of dis came from me, okay?" He turned to look at Optimus until the larger 'bot nodded. "Alright." Folding his arms, he walked a little further from the group of Maximals to lean against a boulder. He knew Optimus had followed him, so he didn't bother to stop staring out to sea. "I never heard much, ya know. Just bits an' pieces."  
  
"Anything could help."  
  
He waved a hand impatiently. "I know, I know! It's just dat...seein' Overdose, well, she fits what all da rumors said, but I never heard nothin' 'bout someone like HER doin' da stuff I heard 'bout. I mean, I never even heard her NAME. Dis is just puttin' two an' two together, ya know?"  
  
Optimus slowly shook his head. "No, I'm afraid I don't. What do you mean?"  
  
Rattrap squinted up at him for a moment. "Eeehhh. Dat's right. Ya wouldn't know." He looked away again. "Look, I ain't always been on da right side of da law, but I think 'bots who do, like da Kid and ya, don't really know what Cybertron's like. Dere's an Underground. Not for petty stuff, like da stuff I did. It's a criminal network. I never got real deep in it, but I saw some pretty ugly stuff, an' everybody in it heard da rumors."  
  
The small Maximal seemed to be caught in his memories, so Optimus asked, "Rumors?"  
  
He shook off his thoughts a little. "Yeah. Rumors. Bodies found in da streets of 'bots missin' days before. People walkin' real careful after a couple shops went up in a bomb. Stuff stolen from major companies and da security teams found half-way 'cross da planet wit' no memory of how dey got dere." Rattrap shook his head again. "An' none of dat stuff even made the news. Somebody big in da Underground covered it all up by da time da Cops got dere. Everybody knew somethin' happened, but nobody could prove it!" He chuckled a little. "Drove da Cops crazy, I'm tellin' ya..."  
  
"But how do you know it was Overdose if nobody knew what was going on?" Optimus pointed out reasonably.  
  
Rattrap shrugged. "Everybody knew it was somebody in deep. One of da big names. Whenever somethin' came up dat didn't have any of da others' signs on it, dere was always one 'bot it got blamed on."  
  
"But how do you know it was Overdose?"  
  
He shrugged again. "Don't. Nobody ever wanted to talk 'bout any of dose rumors wit' somebody like me. I wasn't in deep enough. But afta what Rampage was sayin' and dis whole t'ing wit' Tarantulas...can't think of anyone else it could be."  
  
Optimus nodded slowly. "So how do you suggest we deal with her now?"  
  
This time Rattrap's squint was thoughtful. "Find somethin' she wants, an' bargain," he said.  
  
The Maximal leader stared at him for a long moment. Something she wants... "Rattrap, you may just have it!" He spun on his heel and walked quickly back to the others. "Come on!"  
  
The rat looked out to sea one last time. "We're all gonna die," he sighed, wishing he had kept his mouth shut. Then he followed after Optimus.  
  
* * * * *  
  
"...well, then, how DO I bond it to him?"  
  
"Like, dudette, I don't, like, know."  
  
"I suppose I could just heat him up to 350 degrees, couldn't I? Er, except I don't know how I'd do it. But I could find a giant--hey, you're awake again! Now stay still, I have something I want to try. Hehe, although I don't think you could really move tied up the way you are; still it's polite, so you'd better slagging well not move! Hehehehe!"  
  
Tarantulas shut off his optics as the voice changed from anger back to giggling and wondered if he could force himself to go back offline. He was just about to try when something was forced past his mandibles, and he swallowed automatically before he could think. It wasn't something he usually had to guard against, after all, but now that he had a beast mode and a digestive system...  
  
False energy sparkled through him and lit up his optics, making him gasp in shock. His internal computer began to flash error messages at him, informing him of injuries in BOTH his legs and an unknown virus spreading from his beast mode's stomach. It updated the error message even as it flashed through his mind, though: not a virus, a DRUG.  
  
A bright, happy face hovered over him. "Any side effects yet?" Overdose chirped, poising her pen above the clipboard. Her eyes swirled cheerfully with yellows and pinks along with the fins on her head, and her body was back to its normal colors. Tarantulas would have wondered if there was a connection between her torturing him and the dead black she had been colored, but right at that moment the pain in his legs was distracting him.   
  
It seemed to, no, it WAS getting worse!  
  
His damaged throat protested, but he screamed anyway.  
  
Overdose just nodded and jotted down something. "Enhancement of pain. Interesting! While we're talking," she added absently, still writing, "do you know of anything I could use to turn you into a sculpture? I was going to try using a polyresin, but it needs to be heated to 350 degrees to set correctly, and I don't have anything that could heat you up that hot." She frowned and tapped the pen against her lips. "Although I could try using that volcano behind the Predacon base. Do you think that one guy...uh...what was his name again? Something starting with that one letter..."  
  
Venom listened to Tarantulas' continued screaming and smiled inside Overdose's mind. The idea of enhanced pain was too much to resist...Rainbow Child, perhaps now would be a good time to continue your revenge for Goomba's death.  
  
The colorful personality paused and darkened in remembered anger, and Venom knew she had judged correctly in suggesting, not demanding. This insane 'bot was easily influenced, but was stubborn when ordered to do something. The sane mind laughed softly; she was beginning to understand how to control Overdose...  
  
You can always make a statue out of whatever remains of him. I believe I would like that. A small momento of your vengeance.  
  
"Yes," Overdose muttered as her body's colors faded into dull black, leaving only her eyes dancing with colors. "Yes, I think I like that idea. My dear Eightline--" She paused and frowned. She sounded too much like that one guy. The Predacon leader, whatever his name was. "Tarantulas," she corrected herself. "Tarantulas?"   
  
The pained screaming went on.  
  
Sighing, Overdose pulled out a remote and selected a button. "Eenie, meenie, minie, moe...gotcha!"  
  
Tarantulas arched off the floor again, visor wide in sudden agony, then collapsed as it let off again. Stunned, he stared in mute pain at his torturer. She smiled back at him unpleasantly.  
  
"Shall we begin again? I still have questions, after all." The colorful eyes narrowed as she abruptly yanked the embedded knife back out of Tarantulas' leg. He shrieked, then choked as one hand clamped onto his already-injured throat and the other poised the freed knife over his visor. "Lots of questions."  
  
* * * * *  
  
"It's ridiculous!" Depth Charge snapped.  
  
"Can you think of anything else that might work?" Optimus snapped right back. He had run out of patience with the manta ray. "Right now our biggest concern is getting Tarantulas out of there. If you can't hear it from where you are, let me fill you in on his condition."  
  
The ray's eyes narrowed in confusion as the radio went silent, but then they widened again as a faint scream came through. It sounded like it was echoing, but that made sense if the Maximals were in a cave. "Alright, Primal; you've made your point. But I still don't think it'll work!"  
  
"We've got to at least TRY."  
  
* * * * *  
  
"Like, dudette."  
  
Overdose looked up in annoyance at the computer. Bob was competing with Tarantulas' shrieks to be heard, so she frowned and slashed at the spider's throat with her current knife. It didn't slice in far enough to stop the screeching, but it exposed the voice box. A simple tweaking of a wire cut the volume considerably. "Whatcha want, Bob?" With the constant noise gone, though, the sound of weapons' fire was audible. "Hey, where's that coming from?"  
  
"Like, that's what, like, I was trying to, like, tell you about. The Maximals are, like, attacking the shield, dudette."  
  
She frowned again. "Why? That's a waste of time."  
  
Maximals are foolish that way. They must want to save Lieutenant Eightline for some sentimental reason.  
  
Overdose considered that. "Well, that's pretty stupid."  
  
For once, Overdose, we are in agreement.  
  
She gave it some more thought as the blasting sounds continued and concluded there must be some other reason for the assault. "Hey, you." She poked an exposed wire in the tortured form on the floor and received his immediate, terrified attention. "Why would the Maximals want to rescue you?" The spider's mandibles moved, but only a harsh rasp came out. "Answer me, you freak!" The rasp repeated. "Okay, obviously you don't learn very quickly. What the slag were YOU doing when I was teaching you what would happen when you don't answer me?!" Tarantulas cringed, one half of his visor dead and shattered from one such lesson. A faint whimper followed the rasp this time, but Overdose's eyes burned blood-red with anger.  
  
Her hands were steady as they picked a neurocircuit out of one of the cuts now criss-crossing his legs and pulled slowly, nails scraping along its surface. The spider writhed, shuddering in torment, but the sea slug robot blinked in puzzlement when he didn't scream. Instead, a funny little sound almost like a whistle came from him.  
  
"Huh. Wonder why he did that?" she mused out loud.  
  
"'Cause you, like, pulled the connection to, like, his voice-box," Bob supplied helpfully, and Overdose blinked.  
  
"Oh. Yeah." The angry reds faded from her eyes. "That would explain why he didn't answer me..." She let go of the nerve wire and fiddled with the wiring in his exposed throat instead. "Aaaaaaaaand...there!" Giving the helpless spider an stern look, she asked, "Now, what do you have to say for yourself?"  
  
Tarantulas coughed and trembled, body still wracked with pain. "I tried to answer. I tried! Please, PLEASE stop! Overdose, please..."  
  
"Oh, whatever." Waving a hand impatiently, she ignored his moan of fear when she picked up a small welding laser. The distant sound of chain guns was starting to irritate her. "Why are the Maximals trying to save you?"  
  
"I-I don't kn-know!" the spider stammered, the remains of his visor bright with fear. "M-maybe they want t-to get you?" he added desperately when the reds reappeared in her eyes.  
  
Uncertain suddenly, she looked over her shoulder. "Me? What'd I do?"  
  
"You, like, broke into, like, those dudes' base."  
  
"Oh. Right." Overdose put her chin into the hand not holding the welding laser and thought hard. Chain guns echoed through the caverns. It sounded like there was another attack on the shield from the sea entrance, too. Finally, she came to a difficult decision. "I like the Milky Way better," she said. "Bob, make a note of that."  
  
"Like, okay, dudette. The note is, like, totally made." The computer paused. "Would that, like, be the candy or, like, the Milky Way galaxy?"  
  
Her eyes opened wide, and a shimmer of colors lit up her fins for a moment. "There's a Milky Way candy?!"  
  
"Like, yeah. It's, like, mentioned in, like, my files."  
  
"Cool. I'll have to try it sometime. But I mean the Milky Way galaxy. Er, I think so, anyway. Did I know that there's a Milky Way candy?"  
  
"Like, probably."  
  
"Oh." Overdose blinked. "Well, I think I meant the Milky Way galaxy. Or maybe I meant that I like stars. I like stars a lot. They're sparkly. Or maybe just Red Giant stars, 'cause they're big and pretty. And really destructive to any planets nearby. Hmmmmm. I'm gonna have to remember that purple guy's name eventually if I want to talk to him. If I want to talk to him. Actually, just forget about the note, okay?"  
  
"Like, okay, dudette," Bob said with patience only a computer could have in the face of Overdose's babbling. Tarantulas had already dimmed his half-visor and tried not to think about what was going on. Listening to his torturer's mood swings only made his head hurt worse, and he didn't need any more pain.  
  
"And I'm gonna go see what the Maximals want, too," she added.  
  
"Dudette."  
  
"Stop call me that!"  
  
"Like, okay, dudette."  
  
"Have I mentioned that I'm going to reprogram you?" 


	4. Part 4

* * * * *  
  
Part Four  
  
Rhinox let his chain guns fall back to his sides and looked over at Optimus. "I don't think it's working."  
  
The taller Maximal bleakly nodded. The Maximals had been attacking the shield, but all that had resulted was a lowering of their energy levels. "You're right. Overdose isn't going to respond."  
  
"So what are we supposed to do now?" Cheetor asked. His doubts about Overdose's ability to torture Tarantulas had long since been banished by the screams coming from deeper in the caverns. Somehow, he still couldn't connect the laughing femme to someone who could coldly torture the spider. "Are we just going to leave him in there?"  
  
"No," Optimus told him gently, "but I don't know how we can--"  
  
"Hell-OOOOOOOOO?! Who keeps bam-blam-blasting at my door?"  
  
"Overdose!" He spun to see her walk around the corner. "Overdose?"  
  
The blackened femme smiled brightly as the Maximals stared at her. They didn't know what to make of her lack of color. "Yep, it's me. At least I think it's still me. Let me check!" She ran her hands down her body. "Me, me, me, and I think that's me. What do you guys think? Look at me from the side; do I look different to you?" She turned and posed.  
  
The chatter was definitely her. "Overdose, we need to talk," Optimus said seriously.  
  
"Really? Gee, that was easy! We talked already." She waved and spun around to walk away again.  
  
"Overdose!" the Maximal leader bellowed. "Come back here!"  
  
The rest of the Maximals flinched in surprise at the pure volume, but Overdose just half-turned to look at him. "Whyyyyyyyyyy?" she whined.  
  
"I have something you want."  
  
"Well...alright." Moping, the crazy sea slug shuffled back towards them and stopped behind the shield. "Whazzup?"  
  
"You said you wanted to..." how had she put it? "...a Maximal by day," Optimus said quickly to keep her attention. "I've thought it over."  
  
The colors in her eyes picked up speed. "Hey, neat! So can I?"  
  
"Yes." He cut off her squeal of pleasure, "But only if you let Tarantulas go!" She fell silent, her eyes slowing again, and he pressed on. "Maximals don't torture, Overdose, so if you want to become a Maximal you'll have to let him go."  
  
"But..."  
  
"No 'buts', Overdose," he said sternly.   
  
"C'mon, Overdose!" Cheetor burst out finally. "You gotta let him go!"  
  
The femme gave him a blank look. "I do?" Then she held up her hand before anyone could say anything more. "Wait a click! I gotta think..." She looked at the wall and fell silent.  
  
No! I won't let you free him just so you can join some weakling group!  
  
"Oh, you shut up, too," she muttered. The Maximals exchanged a glance and wondered who she was talking to, but she ignored them. Deep in her mind colors danced and whirled, separated from the frustrated sane personality who could only look on and wonder what she was doing NOW. But what the insanity was doing was coming up with a plan...or more like, completing something she had thought of in passing before. It was insane, yes, but cunning with its insanity. The very thing that made insanity unpredictable was that it could be sane at times, but not at reliable times...  
  
"Alright," she said slowly. "I'll do it."  
  
Optimus smiled, and the Maximals all relaxed a little. "That's great, Overdose."  
  
No, Overdose! Don't do this! Goomba's killer--  
  
"Shut up!" she yelled suddenly at the ceiling, and the Maximals froze in surprise. "I don't CARE what you say!" Folding her arms stubbornly, she muttered and twitched a couple times, then seemed to regain control of herself. She gave Optimus an apologetic look and shrugged. "She's rude, but she's stuck in my head. I can't really ignore her, ya know?"  
  
The Maximal leader shook his head slowly, wondering what he was getting himself into. "No, I don't really know. But you can tell us later, after you set Tarantulas free, okay?"  
  
Overdose's eyes widened, all innocence. "Okay! Is it alright if I start tomorrow, though? I gotta go see that one guy in that one place over by those rocks and things, and I don't know how long it'll take."  
  
Optimus stared at her. "Who..?"  
  
"You know; that guy!"  
  
"Um..."  
  
"He lives in that one place with those other guys."  
  
He looked at the others helplessly. Rhinox puzzled through her odd babbling, though. "You mean Megatron," he said.  
  
Overdose giggled. "That's what I said!"  
  
"Why do you need to go see Megatron?" Optimus asked.  
  
She sighed and gave the impression that she was speaking to a half-wit. "OBVIOUSLY, I have to bring Tarantulas to him. How else will I get into the Predacons?"  
  
Belatedly, Optimus remembered that it had been the other half of her idea of becoming a Maximal to become a Predacon, too. "But you just agreed to let Tarantulas go..."  
  
Her smile was all sweetness and light. "Sure. But did I ever say I was going to give him back to you guys?" She giggled again as she turned and skipped away.   
  
"Overdose, you can't--" Optimus started.  
  
The femme whirled and glared at him, and her eyes glowed red. "Take what you can get, Maximal," she hissed softly, and there was no more innocence. Cheetor looked at her in shock, finally seeing what she was. "This way, he lives." Her head tilted to one side as she stepped back into the darkness of the caves, her smile sarcastic. Her fins blended into the blackness until only her eyes could be seen, colors swirling. "I'm not always so willing to compromise."  
  
The eyes blinked, and she was gone. 


End file.
